Three Pakistani citizens who were released from Guantanamo Bay in September last year said that the U.S. security personnel desecrated the Qur’an and that they were sexually and physically abused by female interrogators.

The three prisoners revealed the abuse accusation to a joint interrogation team (JIT) of Pakistani intelligence agencies - Military Intelligence (MI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Special Investigation Group (SIG) and Sindh Police personnel.

The three detainees, Abid Raza, Mohammad Anwar and Mohammad Ilyas, were arrested in Afghanistan by U.S. forces in January 2002 and sent to the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

They said that prison staff at Guantanamo, especially the female officers, used tough interrogation methods to obtain information from them.

"Women interrogators were particularly indecent with prisoners. They would press their sensitive parts against prisoners' bodies and when a woman interrogator threw menstrual blood on the face of a prisoner, we resorted to a hunger strike," they said.

“Hunger strike was the threat which would usually soften them,” they added.

A JIT member, who demanded anonymity, said that one of Mohammad Anwar’s testicles had been chopped off and that the other two prisoners were suffering from phobias.

He also said that the three men complained of torture and abuse during their detention in Afghanistan and of inhuman conditions during their 28-hour journey from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay.

The prisoners also said that U.S. forces interrogated them about Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISI.

"Most of their questions were about the ISI. They wanted to know how many of those detained in Guantanamo had been associated with the ISI. They would ask things like what were the networks of the ISI in Afghanistan and Iran, how the agency worked in those countries, and who were working for the ISI in Afghanistan and Iran," they said.

Commenting on reports that U.S. forces desecrated the Qur’an, the Pakistanis said that "They would stand on the Qur’an and throw it away, saying the book teaches you terrorism."